berk_ii

I’ve been a reader for years, but first time I’ve posted. Have a puzzler, if anyone has a fix.

95 4Runner 3VZ v6 3.0L, 4wd, manual, 210k miles. Vehicle has been parked for most of the last year. Started right up after a jump and ran like always. This thing has been rock solid for the last 15 years. No engine repair, except for routine maintenance schedule. So, the saga begins…a week later, cruising down the road at 55mph. In a snap, lost power. No “pop”, “bang”, etc. Kept running, but didn’t have much go. Creeped home in 2nd and 3rd gears. Exhaust was looking pretty rough, so I guessed that I blew a baffle and blocked the muffler. “Sputtering” sound through the exhaust.

New exhaust (pipe + muffler) made no improvement. New fuel filter, air filter, plugs. No improvement. Experimented a bit and discovered that I could disconnect plugs 1, 3, 5 (entire RH bank) and the engine ran no worse. Distributor cap looks OK. Spark at distributor and at plugs. After idling for 5 minutes, plugs had hint of gas odor but weren’t dripping with fuel. Checked vacuum hoses I could see/reach, plus doused around intake with ethers…no obvious vacuum leak.

Tested circuits to the RH and LH injector banks. (Thanks for posting the shop manual!!) Both circuits tested with voltages as expected, which pointed me to the ECM. Swapped with a different (used) computer. No difference. Would you [special order] a new ECM?

Pulled the intake off the engine yesterday, hoping I would discover the smoking gun…wires, vacuum hose, anything. Traced wiring through harness by hand and found none damaged. No hidden vacuum hose.

Now I’m not a betting man, but I would bet against 3 injectors failing simultaneously while rolling down the road. Opinions posted here suggest that multiple injectors going out is BS. That said, I’m also not a lucky man… I didn’t pull the injectors yet, but I tested resistance with them installed. All were 13.8 – 13.9 ohms, in range. Do I pull the injectors and test fuel delivery? Or, is there something I’m missing? Is there something that could restrict fuel/function of the RH but not LH injectors?

Oh great Toyota sages , any ideas? Tired and scratching my head.


berk_ii

Paul Haskell

I have the EXACT same problem. Any Help out there?

Paul Haskell

I looked under the timing cover and part of its gasket had got caught in the belt. There were shreds of gaskets all over in there. It caused one cam to slip many teeth. Cleaning it out, patching gasket with RTV and re-setting the timing belt and iginition timing make it run super smooth again. I probably could have done it in the parking lot instead of tow it. It's not hard.